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    Haunted Texas: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Lone Star State
    Haunted Texas: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Lone Star State
    Haunted Texas: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Lone Star State
    Ebook215 pages3 hours

    Haunted Texas: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Lone Star State

    By Alan Brown and Alan N. Brown

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    From the Alamo to UFO sightings, a collection from Texas's rich history and independent spirit.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStackpole Books
    Release dateJul 24, 2008
    ISBN9780811740807
    Haunted Texas: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Lone Star State
    Author

    Alan Brown

    Alan Brown is a seasoned children’s illustrator with over twenty years’ experience. He has a keen interest in the comic book world; he loves illustrating bold graphic pieces and strips. He works from his studio in the north of England with his trusty sidekick, Otto the chocolate cockapoo, and his two sons, Wilf and Ted.

    Read more from Alan Brown

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    • 3/5
      Is a so so book of various haunted houses or ghosts in the state of Illinois. One of the longest sections in the book is devoted to Chicago and he goes into lots of history for Resurrection Mary and who she might be from up there. Many of the stories are more of a history lesson as opposed to a ghost story, or local urban legend. There's one with a haunted pub. An elderly neighbor used to complain about the noise from the bar next door. After her death her house becomes part of the bar. And she continues to make her displeasure with the noise level known. There's a small part about Lincoln but is never really a ghost story is more a history lesson about his time in IL. A haunted mansion in SW Illinois in which the man who had the house built actually had a reverse underground railroad. He would capture escaped slaves and sell them back to southerners as well as capturing and selling free black men. Or the head of a women's finishing school who never did leave her beloved school.

    Book preview

    Haunted Texas - Alan Brown

    Author

    Introduction

    TEXAS IS A STATE OF MANY FACES. IT IS HOME TO BUSTLING METROPLEXES such as Dallas–Fort Worth, where thousands of people work in towering buildings of glass and steel. It is a land of rolling prairies, dotted with cattle ranches and oil wells. It is a historical landscape, where tourists flock annually to visit missions and battle sites. It is a melting pot, enriched by a mixture of Native American, Hispanics, and European cultures. Texas is, in short, a panoramic paradox.

    The lore of Texas is simultaneously conventional and unique. Some of the tales bear the stamp of European folklore. For example, The Lady of White Rock Lake story is essentially The Vanishing Hitchhiker, variants of which can be found across the globe. Another legend, that of La Llorona, is Hispanic in origin, and versions of the story can be found in Spanish-speaking countries all over the world. Other tales, like El Muerto, are a blend of European and Hispanic oral traditions. Some of the legends are imbued with a sense of time and place that is unique to Texas, however. A prime example is the large body of lore that has been generated by the Alamo.

    As in most states rich in history, much of the folklore of Texas is the product of conflict, and several tales deal with warfare. Even though the Civil War did have an impact on Texas, most of the state’s war-related ghost stories deal with the struggle for independence from Mexico. Others focus on the culture clashes between ethnic groups: settlers and Native Americans or white Europeans and their Hispanic neighbors.

    Emerging from these conflicts is a parade of heroes, villains, and victims. The Texas Rangers and the defenders of the Alamo figure prominently in some of the state’s best-known ghost stories. Women, such as Emily Morgan, are afforded heroic status in a few of the tales. The defeat and subsequent humiliation of the greatest villain in Texas history, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, is celebrated in Texas ghostlore. The victims in many of these tales are women, such as Chipita Rodriguez, who suffered unjustly because of racial prejudice.

    Texas has a large number of haunted house stories as well, although not all of the haunted places are private residences. Haunted restaurants, bars, and hotels attract thousands of ghost seekers to Texas each year in hopes of having a close encounter with their otherworldly occupants. Like most southerners, Texans are proud of the ghosts and often use them to attract customers to their establishments. As the stories in this book indicate, the ghosts in these places do not really seem to mind the presence of outsiders. In fact, a number of them appear to take pleasure in interacting with tourists.

    The stories in this volume are merely a representative sample of the state’s rich body of ghostlore. Texas is a very large state, and because of its size, it seems to have produced more ghost stories and weird tales than most of the other states in the Union. Therefore, it would be impossible to include every haunted business, school, or house in a book of this size. After you’ve enjoyed all of these stories, read a book or article in the bibliography. It is my hope that Haunted Texas will whet your appetite for even more of the state’s ghost stories.

    Northeast

    Texas

    EAST TEXAS LARGELY CONSISTS OF THE PRAIRIE PLAINS, WHICH FEATURE alternating belts of rugged and rolling hills covered with oak and hickory forests. The region’s rich soil makes it ideally suited for agriculture. Some of the state’s best-known cities—Austin, Beaumont, Nacogdoches, and Waco—were founded here. This heavily populated area is dotted with hotels, restaurants, cemeteries, and universities, many of which are said to be haunted.

    The Amazing Resurrection of Old Rip

    By the turn of the century, Eastland County had become a bustling, thriving community. After the Texas and Pacific and the Texas Central railroads reached the county in 1881, the population increased from 549 to 2,510. A number of new towns were established, including Ranger, Delmar, Okra, Rising Star, Minrod, and Romney. Between 1880 and 1890, cotton was responsible for much of the county’s growth. Ironically, Eastland County’s most famous resident at this time was not even human.

    In 1897, the Dallas Morning News ran a story based on a Native American belief that horned toads could live a very long time without food, water, or air by going into a suspended state of animation. On July 29, just a few weeks after this story was published, the citizens of Eastland County gathered at the county seat to observe the laying of the cornerstone of the new brick courthouse. Among the people who stood around waiting to place a special object inside the cornerstone was a local electrician named E. E. Wood. In his pocket was a horned toad. On his way to the courthouse, he had observed his son playing with the creature in the yard, and on a whim, Wood decided to test the validity of the claims made in the newspaper article. After watching people place a Bible, a newspaper, and a bottle of whiskey inside the cornerstone, Wood stepped forward and gently placed his son’s little pet lizard inside on top of the other objects. Soon thereafter, a sheet of galvanized iron was placed over the cornerstone and mortared in place.

    By 1928, thirty-one years after E. E. Wood placed the horned toad inside the cornerstone, Eastland County had outgrown the old courthouse. The building was in such a sad state of disrepair that it was razed. Only the eight-foot section of wall containing the cornerstone was left standing. On opening day, more than three thousand people watched as a tractor pulled down the wall. They had been drawn to the county seat by a series of articles, written by a local newspaperman named Boyce House, which speculated that Wood’s horned toad was still alive. After the dust cleared, only the cornerstone remained. One of the spectators was E. E. Wood, who, along with his grown son, gazed intently as workmen pried off the iron lid. A minister, Reverend Singleton, walked up to the cornerstone and peered inside. He then turned to the crowd and announced that the horned toad was clearly visible. At that point, an oilman named Eugene Day stepped forward, reached inside the cornerstone, and picked up the little creature. He handed it to the county judge, who held up the lizard by one leg and displayed it to the crowd. People gasped as the animal began to twitch and inflate itself. Suddenly the crowd erupted in cheers.

    The horned toad, which by this time had acquired the name Old Rip, was placed in a cigar box and taken to the local clinic. X-rays showed that with the exception of a broken leg, Old Rip was fine. The creature was then placed in a goldfish bowl and displayed in the window of a local store.

    Word of the miracle spread throughout Eastland County and beyond. Boyce House’s story of the reptile’s revival was picked up by the United Press. Newsreel companies descended on Eastland to film the little lizard. Before long, the horned toad’s image appeared on movie screens across the nation. A few weeks after Rip’s miraculous resurrection, he went on tour. Rip made public service announcements and endorsed tennis shoes. He is also reputed to have sat on Calvin Coolidge’s desk. Robert Ripley featured him in his Believe It or Not column.

    Eventually, Old Rip returned to Eastland, where he spent his last days in a goldfish bowl in E. E. Woods’s front window. The reptilian celebrity was spoiled by neighborhood children, who fed him handfuls of red ants. The end finally came for Old Rip in January, 1929, when the temperature dropped and the little horned toad froze in the unheated front room. A taxidermist preserved Rip’s body, and it was placed in a special case designed by a local casket company. Old Rip can be seen today in the Eastland County courthouse. Even in death, Old Rip is still a big draw to the sleepy little Texas town.

    The Lady of White Rock Lake

    According to folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand, stories of a riding ghost have been circulated in the United States since the nineteenth century, when people regaled each other while sitting by campfires or the fireplace hearth with ghostly tales, including one of a girl who would hop on the back of a horse when the rider passed by a certain stretch of woods. As soon as he dropped the girl off at her destination, she disappeared. The invention of the automobile sparked a revival of these old stories, especially in the 1930s, with the phantom now appearing as a hitchhiker. One of these tales is set in the White Rock Lake area, not far from Dallas.

    The most commonly told version took place during Prohibition, when a college girl attended a party on a boat floating on White Rock Lake. During the course of the party, she got into an argument with her boyfriend. With tears in her eyes, she climbed into his car and headed north on Garland Road. As she approached the turn at the top of the hill, she stomped on the accelerator by mistake. The car soared down the hill and plunged into the lake with the girl at the wheel.

    The girl drowned in the accident, but it seems that her spirit is still trying to make its way back home. For more than half a century, a number of drivers following the road around the lake have claimed they encountered the shivering figure of a young girl in a white dress standing on the roadside. As the story goes, the girl climbs into the backseat and gives directions to a lakeside house. On the way, she tells a harrowing tale of driving into the lake and narrowly escaping from the submerged vehicle. After the driver pulls into the driveway of the house and looks in the rearview mirror, nothing is there except for a puddle of water on the backseat.

    In another version, a girl in a white dress knocks on the door of a lakeside house. She tells the homeowner that she has had an accident and needs to use the telephone. As she walks through the doorway, she vanishes, leaving only a puddle of water on the floor.

    The Ghosts of the Excelsior

    In the nineteenth century, the town of Jefferson was known as the Riverport to the Southwest. Riverboats brought hundreds of settlers to Jefferson, intent on making their fortune. One of these passengers was William Perry, who built a small hotel close to the Big Cypress River in 1858. In the 1860s and 1870s, a southwest wing was added to the hotel, which was known as the Irving House. Following Perry’s death, the hotel was acquired in 1887 by Mrs. Kate Wood, who renamed it the Excelsior. Constructed of brick and timber, the hotel attracted luminaries from around the world, including Oscar Wilde, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Lady Bird Johnson. Railroad tycoon Jay Gould, who left the hotel without paying his bill, signed the register with his characteristic jay bird. Today the second-oldest hotel in Texas is also believed to be one of the most haunted.

    Staff and guests have had strange experiences in the Excelsior for many years. One night, a clerk standing behind the front desk noticed a woman in a black dress walk out of the manager’s room. The ghostly figure moved across the hall and entered the clerk’s room. Although she was scared to death, the clerk’s curiosity overrode her fears. She walked into the room, where she clearly saw the black-clad figure walk into the bathroom and disappear. Back in the 1970s, a woman was sleeping in the Rutherford B. Hayes Room when unseen hands pulled the blanket off the bed. She got out of bed and checked the door to see if someone had entered her room while she was asleep. The door was locked, just as she had left it.

    The most haunted room in the Excelsior Hotel is the Jay Gould Room. Spectral figures, ghostly voices in the attic, and a rocking chair that rocks by itself are some of the phenomena that people have reported over the years here. A cleaning lady who frequently felt another presence in the room when she was by herself claimed to have seen a headless ghost in the Jay Gould Room. She never entered the room alone after that harrowing incident. In 1974, Steven Spielberg, who was directing the film Sugarland Express in

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